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    ‘Maestro’ and the Fake Nose Hall of Fame

    “Maestro” isn’t the first time a supersize sniffer set off a whiff of controversy. Here’s a look at the most notable schnozzes onscreen.In August, the first trailer for “Maestro,” a biopic of Leonard Bernstein, the composer of “West Side Story” and so much more, set off a backlash almost immediately: Bradley Cooper was wearing a prosthetic nose for the title role.Critics on social media accused the star, who is also the director, of playing into an antisemitic trope with the Size XL prosthesis — and asked whether someone who is Jewish would have been more sensitive about makeup choicesWhile Cooper and Netflix, where “Maestro” will begin streaming on Wednesday, declined to comment. In a statement at the time, Bernstein’s three children, who had been working with Cooper on the film, came to the actor’s defense, noting in a series of posts on X, “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose.” (The family declined to offer additional comment.)It’s hardly the first time an oversize septum has made an onscreen appearance or courted controversy. Here are 12 of the most memorable fake noses in cinematic history, sorted by size from dainty 🥸 to elephantine 🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸.Orson Welles, ‘Touch of Evil’🥸Universal PicturesLike Edmond Rostand’s poet and swordsman, Cyrano de Bergerac, Orson Welles was obsessed with his nose. (He believed his was too small; it was, of course, completely normal.) But instead of channeling his fixation into a healthy pursuit like, say, helping another man win the affections of his own beloved, he sported dozens of fakes over his career. One of the largest was the pugnacious pair of nostrils he wore as the corrupt police captain Hank Quinlan in the 1958 murder mystery “Touch of Evil.”Nicole Kidman, ‘The Hours’🥸Clive Hoote/Paramount PicturesNicole Kidman may have delivered a stirring performance as Virginia Woolf in “The Hours” (2002), but Denzel Washington joked that it was the prosthetic beak she wore that won her the best actress Academy Award. (“The Oscar goes to, by a nose, Nicole Kidman,” he joked when announcing her win.) Kidman wore a fresh one each day on set, though she told The Associated Press that she hung on to a silver one she was given when shooting wrapped.Ralph Fiennes, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’🥸Warner Bros.Is that thing even functional? Probably not; snakes don’t have noses — just nostrils — and smell with their forked tongues. We wouldn’t be surprised if J.K. Rowling’s reptilian baddie in this 2011 franchise finale had one of those, too. But at least we may finally have an answer as to what Voldemort’s unnaturally long fingers are good for.: Nose-picking.Meryl Streep, ‘The Iron Lady’🥸Alex Bailey/Weinstein CompanyLike Kidman, Meryl Streep rode the prosthetic nose she donned to play the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s 2011 biopic to an Oscar win (her third). But this time, the transformation’s genius was in its subtlety — when the first photos of Streep on set were released, the press made nary a peep about the nose.Laurence Olivier, ‘Richard III’ 🥸🥸Laurence Olivier as Richard IIILondon Film ProductionsUnlike Welles, Laurence Olivier didn’t habitually don a fake nose for his roles because of a perceived insecurity about the size of his own; rather, it was just one of the suite of theatrical accessories, including masks and wigs, that he, and many other actors, used transform into various characters. In “Richard III” (1955), which Olivier also directed, his character’s nose is, as one blogger put it, “majestically prominent.”Rudolph, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’🥸🥸Rankin/Bass Productions and NBCWith a workshop of Santa’s elves nearby in this 1964 special, the best Rudolph’s dad, Donner, could do to help his son fit in at school was make a fake nose from mud? He won’t be winning any father-of-the-year awards for that effort.Margaret Hamilton, ‘The Wizard of Oz’🥸🥸🥸MGMMargaret Hamilton came by some of the goods to play the Wicked Witch of the West naturally: She was known for her overlarge nose, which her own father had encouraged her to have surgically altered. But she got the last laugh when she landed the role of the now-iconic villain in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) — for which her nose was made even longer (and greener).Matt Damon, ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’🥸🥸🥸Warner Bros., via AlamySure, there are performers with bigger noses on this list, but Matt Damon might be the only one who planned a con around his. In this 2007 sequel, his character, Linus, dons the prosthesis — which Damon nicknamed “The Brody” in a nod to the actor Adrien Brody’s well, you know — in a bid to disguise himself and gain access to a case full of diamonds.Steve Carell, ‘Foxcatcher’🥸🥸🥸Scott Garfield/Sony Pictures ClassicsSteve Carell’s souped-up schnozz in this 2014 true-crime tale may have left some people scratching their heads — the real-life version of his character, John du Pont, the millionaire wrestling enthusiast-turned-murderer, wasn’t well known, so the attention to detail seemed excessive. But the nose did serve another purpose: It made audiences forget they were staring at Carell, who was known mainly for comedies at the time.Alec Guinness, ‘Oliver Twist’🥸🥸🥸🥸United Artists, via Alamy StockCharles Dickens wrote Fagin in “Oliver Twist” as a thoroughly antisemitic villain, and in the 1948 film adaptation, Alec Guinness, the non-Jewish actor who played the character, spoke in a droning lisp and appeared with hooded eyes and an enormous prosthetic hook nose. The nose was deemed “incredibly insensitive,” as The Jewish Chronicle wrote, and it provoked significant anger from Holocaust survivors.Billy Crystal, ‘The Princess Bride’🥸🥸🥸🥸20th Century Fox, via AlamyBilly Crystal was already so funny in “The Princess Bride” (1987) that the director, Rob Reiner, claimed that he had to leave the set during Crystal’s scenes as Miracle Max because he was unable to contain his laughter. Adding a bulbous tomato of a nose took Crystal’s physical comedy over the top. (Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya, actually bruised a rib trying to stifle his own chuckles.)Steve Martin, ‘Roxanne’🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸Columbia PicturesYou could land a bird on that thing (which the director, Fred Schepisi, did.) Steve Martin’s five-inch appendage for the 1987 film took 90 minutes to apply every day and two minutes to remove. “God how I hated that thing,” he told The Washington Post. More

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    Judge Halts Auction of ‘Wizard of Oz’ Dress Amid Ownership Battle

    A blue-and-white dress worn by Judy Garland is the subject of a dispute between Catholic University and the family of its former drama chairman.A federal judge on Monday blocked Catholic University from auctioning off a memorable white-and-blue dress worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” after a Wisconsin woman filed a lawsuit claiming she was the rightful owner of the gingham pinafore garment donned by Dorothy.Judge Paul G. Gardephe of U.S. District Court in Manhattan granted a preliminary injunction a day before the dress was scheduled to be auctioned in Los Angeles, where it had been expected to sell for more than $1 million. Catholic University had planned to use that money to endow a new faculty position in the Rome School of Music, Drama and Art.Judge Gardephe ruled that the dress could not be sold by Catholic University until the lawsuit was resolved. Both sides are set to meet in court on June 9.In her lawsuit, filed earlier this month, Barbara Ann Hartke claims the dress belonged to the estate of her uncle, the Rev. Gilbert Hartke, who was once chairman of the university’s drama department and received the dress as a gift in 1973 from the Academy Award-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, who was also an artist in residency at the university.Ms. McCambridge had “specifically and publicly” given the dress to Mr. Hartke as a demonstration of gratitude for “helping her battle alcohol substance abuse,” the lawsuit states.Mr. Hartke died in 1986, and Ms. Hartke says she is his closest living heir.The lawsuit states that Ms. McCambridge was a “close confidant” of Ms. Garland, but it is unclear exactly how she obtained the dress.The university has contended that the dress was a gift from Mr. Hartke, and that it was his wish for it to be kept within the institution.Shawn Brenhouse, a lawyer for Catholic University, said in a statement on Monday night that the judge’s decision “was preliminary and did not get to the merits of Barbara Hartke’s claim to the dress.”“We look forward to presenting our position, and the overwhelming evidence contradicting Ms. Hartke’s claim, to the court in the course of this litigation,” Mr. Brenhouse said.Anthony Scordo III, a lawyer for Ms. Hartke, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday night.The fragile dress has become legend ever since Ms. Garland wore it in the Technicolor classic in 1939, complementing the plaid look with ruby-red slippers sought by the Wicked Witch. Ms. Garland wore several versions of the dress, but only one other is known to still exist. It was sold in 2012 by Julien’s Auctions for $480,000. In 2015, it sold again for nearly $1.6 million.The location of the second dress had been a mystery until it was found by chance last year in a shoe box, inside a bag, sitting on top of faculty mailboxes. Matt Ripa, a lecturer and operations manager at the drama school, found the bag when he was cleaning up the area in preparation for renovations of the Hartke Theater.The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History helped authenticate the dress, which includes a fitted bodice, a high-necked blouse and a full skirt, with a fabric label inside inscribed “Judy Garland 4223.”Ms. Hartke claims in her lawsuit that her family was never made aware of the discovery by the university. They had known a dress existed, and were surprised to read headlines about preparations to auction it off “without any compensation to its rightful owners,” the lawsuit states.“There is no documentation demonstrating that” Mr. Hartke ever donated the dress to Catholic University, according to the lawsuit. More